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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (36367)	4/17/2007 6:17:59 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542015

Here's what you don't get- suicide is the leading cause of death for students 15-24. There's a heck of a lot more than 33 per year. Read the article I posted to you wrt colleges and suicide. I don't expect perfect safety. I have never expected that. I know there will be terrorists who defeat our defenses and there will be mass killers who defeat us- but there are ways to make things better WITHOUT living in a police state. We should try those things. Your answer is to arm everyone. I'm not really going to agree with that, since I think we'd see more deaths with your system rather than less.

To: LindyBill who wrote (36367)	4/17/2007 8:37:38 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542015

Not surprisingly, that piece is a National Review piece, which is, among other things, a PR outlet for the NRA. Bill, you appear to be defending the ultra libertarian position on this issue, the one that says everyone has a right to have a gun. If you create a continuum from that position, and let's call it a far right position on one end, to a far left position of no guns permitted in the civilian population and with precious few arms for the police (the British position at one point) on the other, you appear to have taken that far right position. And are defending yourself by accusing your opposites in this debate of occupying the far left. Which is, of course, not true. The problem with your position is that it legitimates vigilantism and a Lord of the Flies social order or, to use another metaphor you might choose, a Wild West. Yet we all know, and you do as well, that there has to be a balance between the rights of the individual and the need for certain kinds of order. Debates are over where to place the balance. Yours simply drops the notion of a balance and attacks others as if they've taken the opposite extreme. None of this will be settled by posting wars. We can all find reams of essays, research pieces, and what nots that offer justifications, rationales, even rationalizations for our positions. But won't lead to conversations. So, do you believe in a Hobbesian, Lord of the Flies, social order in which each individual must arm themselves against potential threats from others? Or do you think there is a balance somewhere? And skip the talk of warfare; college campuses are not war zones.